Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup

"Just like Grandma used to make". That's what the commercials for canned soup say to get you to buy their products. Well, after you make this soup, you'll never again want to eat canned chicken noodle soup, and depending on how good a cook Grandma was....this may even beat her's! Typically, when I fix a large pot of soup, we have a few meals worth of leftovers. But the we loved this soup so much that there was barely any for me to heat up for lunch the next day. Bummer!!

I purchased a whole chicken to fix because I wanted some leftover meat to shred for chicken salad and economically, it was certainly cheaper that way. Boy was I glad I did, the flavor of the chicken was amazing! I experimented a little with the broth as I boiled the chicken. I added poultry seasoning, salt, pepper, celery leaves and chicken base (something I read about on Pioneer Woman) to the water with the vegetables and cooked on a medium-low temp for a couple of hours. You can just imagine how that smelled while cooking! The chicken literally fell off the bone as I removed it from the pot. As I was pulling chicken into bite sized pieces, I couldn't keep little fingers from grabbing chicken strips to munch on. "Mom, this chicken is so good!!" "Well, if you keep eating it I won't have any left for the soup, now out...all of you." Never thought I would have to shoo the kids out of the kitchen for eating CHICKEN. Yay-what a success.

The creamy base of the soup was incredibly creamy and delicious and added the extra "pop" I was looking for. I love a soup base that makes you savor it's texture and flavors slowly. Yum.

This is the soup that I fixed my baking soda biscuits for (otherwise known as hockey pucks) and that Marty drowned in the creamy soup base. I was so pleased with how the soup turned out that it almost made me feel better about my failure with the biscuits. ALMOST. I'll conquer those biscuits one day.

Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup

1 whole chicken
1 cup sliced carrots
1/2 of medium onion-chopped
1/2 cup chopped celery
2 teaspoons poultry seasoning
1/3 cup chicken base
4 tablespoons butter
6 tablespoons flour
5 cups chicken broth
2 cups whole milk or light cream (I used the cream)
2 cups medium egg noodles
parsley

In a large pot cover the chicken with water. Add onion, celery, carrots, salt, pepper, poultry seasoning and chicken base. Cook chicken on medium low for 1-2 hours until done. Remove chicken from pot and tear or chop into bite sized pieces.

In a large saucepan melt butter. Stir in flour. Add chicken broth and cream. Cook and stir until thick and bubbly. Stir in chicken, veggies and noodles. Cook until noodles are tender. Garnish with fresh snipped parsley.

**I prepared this earlier in an afternoon so I added the chicken and veggies and let simmer on the stove until near dinner time and then added the noodles. I didn't want soggy noodles in our soup!!

Source: Christy's Kitchen Creations

***Don't ask me why the text is different..I've tried like heck to fix it and can't figure it out, so I'm posting as is. If there is a blogger geek squad out there, please HELP ME!!